“I had a very selfish reason for building Mathematica. I wanted to use it myself, a bit like Galileo got to use his telescope four hundred years ago. But I wanted to look, not at the astronomical universe, but at the computational universe.”

The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.
Context: In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

I decided that I would go in the biological direction that I would become a doctor.
Kobos, Andrzej (2009). Po drogach uczonych (in Polish). 4. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, pp. 383–398. ISBN 978-83-7676-021-6.

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

Then & Now: Dr. Mae Jemison http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/01/07/cnn25.tan.jemison/, CNN, 19 June 2005

The End of the Affair (1951)

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 20

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Trouser Press 1980